“Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
~Jude 24-25 (NRSV)
Jude’s benediction was, perhaps, never intentioned as an exhortation as the rest of his short epistle is. But in the context of warning this benediction is given. And, as such, it applies to us at all times whilst we live this physical life in the body.
There is a vast quantity of temptations toward idolatry in today’s world—no less, and probably more, than at any other time in human history—not to elaborate on the degradation of societal values in an otherwise ‘enlightened’ age. Any society (and ours is now global) that gets ‘too good for God’ runs the gauntlet of Divine wrath.
And for each of us, personally, there is the constant grind of being home in the body, yet away from the Lord. We are vouchsafed by the Holy Spirit, but we still battle the flesh.
Re-Centring by Practice
Whilst we are home in the body, privileged yet somehow also cursed in the living condition, we are destined to run from the safe path of God. This is our default, for if it’s not our flesh we deal with, the world encroaches, and the third nemesis, Satan, strangles us at other times.
But the Lord is more powerful than these three—infinitely so.
God laughs in derision (Psalm 2) at the false veneer strength that the flesh, the world, and Satan put up.
But the incredible power resident in the Holy Spirit to guide us through tremulous times of temptation toward backsliding, or the enticement of bondage common to our humanity, can only be unlocked—one moment at a time—via the practice of re-centring on the ancient, and frequently lost, art of surrender.
As we engage in another art—this time, advocacy, even to the self—we gain concept: surrender. Acting in pure congruence to being supervised, as if the Holy Spirit were literally in charge, we make wiser decisions just by re-centring.
We necessarily re-centre on the Presence of God and on the holy path. We do this because wisdom advises us; not because it sounds good, because it won’t.
One Continual Reality
Though we have been freed, and on various levels, not least of which freed for eternity, we are still bonded to the flesh. We remain in varying degrees of bondage, accordant of our personalities, and so salvation needs to be one continual reality—not a once-off experience where the ‘ticket to heaven’ is bought by the Saviour’s sacrifice.
Breaking free from bondage needs to be a daily concern for the saved; for anyone, in fact. Why live a life of death when a life of life stands there to be consumed?
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One day at a time, and each liveable moment, we are pressed with decisions: right way or wrong way. The Holy Spirit empowers us, one decision at a time. We can break free from any wrong way as we trust our momentary obedience to God.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
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